Here's the best personality type to lead during a recession

The Business Insider article, "Here’s the Best Personality Type to Lead During a Recession," features Russell Reynolds Associates' “Inside the Mind of the CFO” research. The article looks at the type of characteristics needed by CFOs and what
Jenna Fisher says about the study. The following is an excerpt of the article.

The team at executive search firm Russell Reynolds examined the type of characteristics needed by CFOs during times of economic booms and busts.

The survey compared 129 CFOs against a broader database of executives. Researchers examined 60 commonly accepted psychological scales from well-validated leadership assessments to "understand on which scales the CFOs showed statistical differences from the other populations."

Using that information they put together a list of traits that demonstrates how different types of CFOs work best during certain economic conditions.

"When we looked at the psychometric data from CFOs we'd assessed at different points in the economic cycle, some fascinating observations emerged," Russell Reynolds CFO expert Jenna Fisher told Business Insider. "From 2003 to 2007, when the waters were relatively smooth, the CFOs being hired were fairly low-key and not averse to taking a bit of risk. During the recession, though, firms recruited a new breed of take-charge CFO — a bolder, more ambitious, more imaginative, more dynamic leader."

She added, "Interestingly, though, post-recession organizations are targeting CFOs with more conservative DNA — more perfectionistic, detail oriented, and diligent — hoping to prevent a recurrence of the oversights that led us into the financial crisis in the first place."

The report concludes that we may attribute this trend to the recent rise of the qualified accountant as CFO. "However, we see this characteristic manifested even among advisor CFOs (former bankers, consultants, and the like) and thus also attribute this movement to ever greater regulatory pressure for CFOs to be absolutely crisp on the details."